Read The Horsemaster's Daughter Online
Authors: Susan Wiggs
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General
A
bigail needed a breath of fresh air. She left through the back of the house, passing the gun room, the stillroom, the pantry and storerooms that smelled of molasses and drying herbs. The cook’s boy directed her to the door, which opened out onto a screened porch. Beyond that, she found a kitchen garden at the rear of the house, where a few hardy vegetables struggled through the chill autumn weather. Following a path downhill between an arch of ancient rosebushes, she emerged into a more formal garden of lush smooth lawns littered with fallen leaves and bordered by espaliered fruit trees contorted into unnatural shapes.
She’d survived the ordeal of the oysters, but in more important matters she was filled with doubt. What had begun as a harmless, almost playful flirtation of letters had somehow careened out of control. Her correspondence with Lieutenant Butler had fast escalated to a romance of deception.
Abigail used to pride herself on her honesty. Now she engaged in falsehoods on a daily basis. For a person who had never been good at lying, she was learning from a master—Jamie Calhoun.
He pretended to be a man of simple needs—the desire to serve his country—but she was coming to realize that he possessed hidden complexities she could only begin to imagine. And why should she imagine them at all? He was nothing to her, a mere device, someone to consult about the baffling rituals of courtship, much like an encyclopedia or an oracle, perhaps. He would probably enjoy being considered an oracle.
At the bottom of the garden, not far from the wind-bitten shoreline, she spied a low wrought-iron fence forming a rectangular border around a cemetery plot.
Dried yellow grasses waved in the cold sea breeze, and thorny bushes struggled along the fence, bulbous crimson rose hips showing through the dying foliage. For the most part, the markers sat low in the grass and lacked ornamentation save for a cross or brief verse carved into the stone.
Drawn by curiosity, she entered the fenced area and walked between the sad monuments, scoured and pitted by the salt air. Carved into the headstones were the names of Calhouns through the ages, the earliest being Samuel Calhoun of Bristol, England, 1684.
He Was Seven Years a Sea Captain and Fathered Seven Sons and Seven Daughters…
No wonder the plot was so large.
She was half-afraid to visit the newer-looking graves, for she didn’t like to think of Albion as a place of tragedy. Silly, she told herself. People died. It was all part of the mysterious circle of life.
Instinctively her sharp eyes flicked to the sky, but it was too early yet for stars. At Albion, Mrs. Calhoun had explained, they served supper early so they could talk late into the night.
“You all right, miss?”
Abigail twirled around, grasping the wrought-iron fence for balance. “Julius. You startled me.”
The boy made no apology but came into the cemetery through the iron gate.
“I enjoyed the riding today,” she said. “And I owe you a great deal of thanks. You’re a fine teacher for a timid rider, Julius.”
His slightly bashful smile further endeared him to her. “Glad to hear it, ma’am.”
Abigail faced the rows of stone monuments. “I suppose you think this is a strange occupation, wandering amidst the headstones.”
He hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his trousers. “I reckon. But I don’t reckon the dead mind.” He walked over to one of the less timeworn graves. “Lacey Beaumont Calhoun,” he said, picking up a spray of purple asters. “She gets fresh flowers on her grave every Sunday, even in winter.”
Beloved mother, cherished wife….
Abigail could see that she had died back in 1852 at the age of twenty-six. Yet her grave was tended like a shrine, years later.
“Someone must miss her very much,” she said.
“Reckon so.”
Sensing a deeper truth, she said, “I wonder who that could be. Do you know, Julius?”
“Some of the old folks used to whisper about it,” he said. “They say my granddaddy tends her grave because he loved her and could never have her. On account of she was married to his cousin.”
It sounded terribly tragic to Abigail, like an opera by Herr Wagner she’d gone to see at Ford’s Theater last summer. Unrequited love, illicit desire, dying young—it had all happened to the Calhoun family.
Maybe that was the reason Jamie shied from emotional involvement, the reason he was so cynical about romance and indifferent about Albion.
“And who is your granddaddy?” she asked, confused.
“Mr. Charles Calhoun,” said Julius matter-of-factly.
She shut her mouth to stifle a gasp. Charles Calhoun—Jamie’s father—was this boy’s grandfather.
Julius moved on to the newest monument of all, a squat fieldstone with a polished brass plaque, the earth around it covered by fallen leaves.
“And this here’s for my daddy,” the boy whispered, folding himself into a sitting position on the grass and brushing dry leaves from the base of the grave. “It’s where he should be, anyways, but he ain’t here. This marker’s just for remembering.” Taking out a small, hand-carved figure of a running horse, he set the token atop the stone. “Hi, Daddy,” he said.
Abigail’s throat stung with tears as she read the inscription on the brass plaque:
Noah Calhoun. Son of Charles Calhoun. Champion rider, beloved husband and father.
So Julius was Jamie’s nephew, she realized with a jolt.
“You must miss your father terribly,” she said.
Julius nodded.
“I met your mother today,” she told him. “Your uncle Jamie took me to the place on King’s Creek.”
“I aim to work it myself, soon’s I turn sixteen.”
Abigail felt a tingle of insight. The bottomlands around King’s Creek would disappear if the proposed railroad expansion went through. The people there would be put off their land.
“He was starting up a horse farm of his own,” Julius continued. “Would have turned it into the best in the state. Mama sent me back to Albion on account of…” He eyed her from beneath lowered lashes. “Well, here at Albion, they look after me real good.”
Look after him, she thought in a fury, as though he were a piece of property, as his ancestors undoubtedly had been.
“What happened to your father, Julius?” she asked.
“He went on a horse-buying trip overseas. He and Uncle Jamie bought horses in Ireland, Spain, Morocco, Tunisia.” Julius’s eyes shone. “They always sent us special treasures. A silk scarf for my mama, a set of brass bells for me. Daddy said I’d get to go with him one day. But on the last trip, Uncle Jamie came home alone. He was real skinny, had a mess of whiskers and he smelled funny. Told my mama that Daddy died on the other side of the world. He was a real good man, my daddy, and I purely miss him.”
A strong wind, redolent of the marshy air, rolled in from the east. Abigail watched a raft of sandpipers take flight to the east, and she stood in contemplative silence, aching for the boy whose father lay forgotten in some unknown land.
At last, she was beginning to understand Jamie Calhoun. He’d always maintained that he’d got himself elected to Congress simply because he was bored and it was what men of his class did to show their commitment to civic duty.
She knew better now.
S
enator Cabot was sound asleep even before the side-wheeler
Larissa
cleared Chesapeake Bay and churned into the mouth of the Potomac River. The travelers had decided to return to town by the water route. Jamie had made his point about the railroad issue on the coach trip, so for now he chose comfort over utility. Helena and Professor Rowan were off somewhere as usual, undoubtedly misbehaving and loving every minute of it.
Abigail stood at the figured wrought-iron rail, watching the pattern of early-evening stars coming out over the bay. Emerging from one of the grand saloons of the riverboat, Jamie joined her at the rail but she hardly spared him a glance.
“Are you in a temper?” he asked her.
“What if I am?”
“Then I’d feel compelled to tease you out of it.”
“Don’t bother. It won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“You’re the cause of it, that’s why.”
He laughed. “You’ll have to do better than that. Your spirits are low, and I am the cause?”
“It’s silly, isn’t it? Makes you seem more important than you are. But since you asked, the answer is yes, I’m cross with you.”
“Why? I thought a weekend in the country would please you. Didn’t I bring you to a place so dark you could see all the stars?”
“Yes.”
“And didn’t I teach you to ride a horse?”
“Yes,” she admitted again.
He moved close, pressing his shoulder to hers so that she couldn’t ignore his warmth. “Didn’t I teach you to kiss? Perhaps you need further study in that area.”
“No.” She sidled away from him. “I don’t need anything more from you. Ever.”
She could hear him counting under his breath. Then he said, “I’ve obviously missed something. Only yesterday we were the best of friends sharing a delightful holiday. You taught me about the stars and planets, and I taught you to ride and flirt.”
“We’re not friends, best or otherwise. A friend is someone who knows you. He shares himself, even the parts that are difficult to share. You keep too many secrets to be anyone’s friend.”
He spread his arms. “I’ve told you a great deal about myself. Brought you to Albion. Introduced you to my parents. Isn’t that sharing?”
Somehow he cornered her again, pressing her between the rail and a wall of the upper saloon. She felt intimidated by his height, and uncomfortably aware of the undeniable tension between them. Yet the genuine bafflement in his face irritated her.
“You’ve told me—shown me—only the surface facts. I know as much about Galileo, and he’s been dead for centuries. You’ve shown me nothing of what lies beneath the outer layer. I know you only as a man behind a handsome barrier of charm and urbane manners.”
He grinned at that. “You think me charming? Handsome? My, my—urbane? I never knew.”
“Don’t get a big head about it. A handbag can be handsome. A Pekingese dog can be charming.” In the light emanating from the saloon, she studied his eyes, noting their disturbing shade of gray. It was not a flat color, but a storm of hues from opaque coal to pale ice. “A muffin tin can be charming on the surface. But it has no more substantive virtue than a hollow shell.”
He threw back his head and guffawed. “A perfect observation.” Then he grabbed her shoulders, and she was startled by a swift, unbidden reaction. “That’s exactly it. I’m all surface charm, no substance beneath,” he said, seeming not to notice her flushed face, the nervous way she gripped the rail.
Trying to slow her racing pulse, she studied those eyes again, searching the complicated facets of shadow and light. “That’s what you want me to believe.”
“That’s what is true. There’s nothing more than you see before you now.” He bent to an intimate angle, his lips dangerously close to hers.
Heavens, what was it about the man? About her? She lost all perspective when she was around him. Taking refuge in resentment, she pushed against his chest. “Don’t insult my intelligence. You have a past. You have an inner life. Just because you refuse to speak of them doesn’t mean they’re nonexistent.”
He traced his finger over the pulse in her throat and smiled when she flinched. He was taunting her by crowding close, touching her, reminding her of what they had done together under the stars. But he didn’t kiss her now, only rubbed the pad of his thumb over her lower lip in a manner so outrageous that she froze.
“Believe me,” he said, “I’m not that interesting.”
She took a deep breath, then looked him in the eye to prove she wasn’t afraid of him or intimidated by his nearness. “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”
“I don’t subject myself to anyone’s judgment, honey. Not even yours.”
Furious, she ducked under his arm, escaping the imprisoning posture. “Then we really don’t have anything to talk about, do we?”
“All right. I confess, you have me confused. You wanted lessons in getting a man to notice you—namely, Boyd Butler III. Am I to understand you also want to be friends with me?”
“What if I did?”
“I’d tell you to aim higher.” He moved close to her again, his presence as oppressive as the heavy atmosphere of the estuary. Taking her hands, he added, “You can do better.”
“Maybe I can, maybe not. You won’t reveal enough of yourself for me to see who you really are.” In the silence that ensued, it occurred to her that he was like the stars that had been her passion for years. At first they seemed distant, mysterious, impossible to know. In time, she had come to know the stars as well as the dahlias in her garden. But unlike the stars, he was not revealing himself to her.
“Why do you stare at me like that?” he asked.
“I was thinking of the stars.”
“Clearly I missed something.”
“They used to be a great puzzle to me. But then I applied mathematics and logic, and I understand them now. I know their size and color and weight, their brightness and composition. And I know precisely where they are, even when they’re invisible to me.”
“You’ll have to explain the relevance of that observation. Are you saying that if you study me using scientific methods, you’ll come to know me?”
“Perhaps.”
“As I said earlier, there’s nothing—”
“Noah,” she said, watching him closely. “Is he nothing?”
A dull red crept into his cheeks. “What about Noah?”
“Why don’t you tell me? Tell me about your half brother.”
His mouth hardened. “I suspect someone already has. Julius, I assume. He told you all there is to know.”
“He told me what
he
knows. I’d rather hear the truth from your lips. I very much doubt your nephew can explain a man like you. Tell me, does your father keep him as a slave, or does he pay him a pittance for working at Albion?”
He shoved away from her on the deck. “You’ve got the wrong idea, Abby.”
The intensity of his anger intrigued her. “Then enlighten me.”
“I never liked being my mother’s only son,” Jamie said. “Never liked being the legitimate one.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to be the one they expect everything of.”
That didn’t surprise her. “Noah’s mother was a slave?”
He nodded. “When my father was young and even more foolish than me, he had an adventure with a laundress at Albion. Our father was—is—a decent man, but he’s careless. He’s always had the bad judgment to love inappropriately. I think he did love Noah’s mother, but it brought them nothing but grief.”
“And a son.”
“And a son,” he admitted. “Eventually, my father gave Noah his name, although he failed to acknowledge his son until Noah was sixteen and didn’t need him anymore.”
“I don’t think it’s possible to ever stop needing a father,” Abigail said.
Jamie dismissed the comment with a careless shrug of his shoulders. “Noah did fine without him. Which was just as well, because by then my father was too busy with his other love affairs.”
Abigail remembered the fresh flowers on the headstone of Lacey Beaumont Calhoun, and a chill passed over her. Jamie seemed to be saying the Calhoun men were destined to suffer through tragic love affairs. She studied his face, searching the shadowed planes and angles for the boy he’d been, but finding only an impenetrable hardness. Had he known of his father’s affairs? How had they affected him?
As though she’d asked her question aloud, he said, “So you see, when it comes to love, the men of my family are not inclined to loyalty.”
“Loyalty isn’t an inborn trait. Besides, you probably have more of Noah in you than your own father, and according to you, Noah was a good man. Julius knows that, too, but at his age I imagine he has questions. I know I did, about my mother. Yet my father would never speak of her.” She refused to back down. “You ought to be ashamed for not telling Julius more about the way his father died. You owe it to him, Jamie.”
He cut the air with his hand. “You think that would help? You think Julius needs to know every detail of his father’s death?”
“He deserves to know the truth.”
“Not this truth.”
“What happened?”
He hesitated. “It’s a long story, Abigail.”
“It’s a long ride up the Potomac.”
Hands on hips, he gazed out at the dark water and a faraway look crept into his eyes. “We were on a horse-buying trip in the Middle East, and there was trouble.” Jamie swallowed, then spoke softly as though he’d forgotten she was there. “I’ll say no more—to you or to Julius. Suffice it to say I had a half brother who was twice the man I am. He died. It happens. It makes us curse God and doubt his existence when a good person dies before his time. But it happens far too often.”
She thought of her mother and couldn’t dispute it. The bitterness in his voice was edged with a regret she’d felt all her life. Though the things he said were painful to hear, she didn’t want to drop the subject. He was beginning to talk to her in a way he never had before.
Jamie folded his arms and faced the city lights, just coming into view from the deck. The Potomac formed a sweeping bay around which the capital was built. A mile-long wooden bridge connected Virginia and Maryland; the Navy Yard, Arsenal and penitentiary stood sentry along the shore.
“Why do you say Noah was twice the man you are?” Abigail asked.
“Because he did things that mattered. Yeah, he was a jockey. He won more races than he lost, but there was more to him than that. He taught me to ride and shoot and fish. He taught me that laughter’s a good way to deal with things and that to worship, all I needed to do was to look out at the world of nature.”
Perhaps that was how Jamie had formed his reverence for the land, why he was willing to battle the powerful railroads to safeguard a part of Virginia.
“I wish I’d known your brother.” She regarded Jamie with new eyes. “Noah’s the reason you ran for the legislature and the reason you’re committed to halting the railroad expansion.”
“Your point being?”
“You don’t want to be considered a good man, even though you are.”
“Shouldn’t you be saving all these admiring thoughts for your lieutenant?”
She scowled at him. “I’m capable of being friends with more than one sort of person.”
“Trust me, I know. I’ve read your letters.”
She hated herself for having let him. Why had she given him that glimpse of her heart? It was like the rabbit turning belly up to the wolf.
“You of all people shouldn’t criticize me for having feelings of admiration. You encouraged me to do so,” she reminded him. He made her inexpressibly sad, and the feeling surprised her. Why should she feel a thing on behalf of Jamie Calhoun? They had formed this alliance for the purpose of snaring her a husband and winning Jamie the support of a powerful senator. That left no room for caring.
“Well,” she said, trying not to seem flustered, “one thing is certain, my father is impressed with you and your family.”
“Then the holiday was a success. Abby, don’t mistake me for a man with a conscience. I came here with an agenda, and I’ll do what I have to do in order to accomplish it.”
“Including befriending Senator Cabot’s homely daughter?”
He laughed. “Touché, darling.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but he caught her chin in his hand and closed it, running his thumb lightly along her jawline with insolent familiarity. “You’re very close to winning your lieutenant,” he said. “That’s what you should think about rather than decrying my low character, which is what you were about to do.”
She jerked away. “You think this is a game to be won or lost,” she said. “I love him. Can you understand that?”
“Love.” He gave an unpleasant laugh. “You think you love Butler because he poses no threat to your well-ordered little world. He demands nothing of you beyond the occasional poetic letter. So long as he stays out of your reach, you won’t have to risk yourself.”
She glared at him. “How dare you say these things?”
“Because no one else will. Face it, Abby, you’re afraid of risk. Pining away for Boyd Butler is like loving a star. You don’t have to put yourself in the position of being vulnerable. Have you ever wondered what would happen if you dared to take a chance?”
“I take risks,” she retorted. Why couldn’t he see that? Why didn’t he understand the ridicule she’d endured because of her clumsiness, her love of the stars? “Didn’t I learn to ride a horse?”
“Then risk your heart,” he snapped.
“As you’ve risked yours?” she demanded.
He ignored—or avoided—the question. “You want to win your father’s esteem, but nothing you’ve ever done in your life has garnered more than passing admiration from him. When you stop trying so hard, you might succeed.”
“Or fail.”
They argued back and forth as the side-wheeler docked, then sat in stony silence all the way back to Georgetown. Helena chattered blithely away, while Professor Rowan listened with helpless admiration.
When they arrived at Dumbarton Street, Jamie insisted on helping the porters bring in the luggage, lingering to confer with Abigail’s father on the brick walk between their two houses. Now that Father had seen for himself how wealthy the Calhouns were, he regarded Jamie with expansive approval and a growing openness to his position on the railroad issue.